Taglines: 3% Body Fat. 1% Brain Activity.
Derek Zoolander has been the dominant male model in the industry for three years thanks to his patented “look,” Blue Steel. On the night of the VH1 Fashion Awards, what should be his fourth trophy goes to an upstart model named Hansel. Adding to the insult, a story in Time magazine brands him an idiot. Derek decides to retire and seek out his roots.
Meanwhile, the new prime minister of Malaysia has upset a secret coalition of fashion designers by promising to raise the minimum wage, effectively ending their supply of cheap labour in sweatshops. Sensing disaster, the covert group charges Mugatu, the current king of haute couture, to find a mindless male model to brainwash into assassinating the new world leader.
Derek, rejected by his family, stumbles predictably into Mugatu’s hands and the only ones who can save him are the reporter who took away his good name, his rival Hansel, and a mysterious model from the past who sheds light on the whole conspiracy. They have to work against time and Derek’s ineptitude to stop him from killing on the night Mugatu reveals his newest clothing line with the Malaysian minister as his “honoured guest.”
Zoolander is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Ben Stiller and starring Stiller, Owen Wilson and Will Ferrell. The film contains elements from a pair of short films directed by Russell Bates and written by Drake Sather and Stiller for the VH1 Fashion Awards television specials in 1996 and 1997.
The short films and the film itself feature a dimwitted, narcissistic male model named Derek Zoolander, played by Stiller. The film involves Zoolander becoming the pawn of corrupt fashion executives who are plotting to assassinate the Prime Minister of Malaysia. The name “Derek Zoolander” was invented by Bates while he was editing the first short film, and was inspired by the names of two male models who both worked for Calvin Klein: the Dutchman Mark Vanderloo and the American Johnny Zander.
A satire on the fashion industry, the film received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success. A sequel, Zoolander 2, was released on February 12, 2016, to negative reviews. An animated series, Zoolander: Super Model, was released on Netflix UK in August 2016.
Zoolander was never shown in Malaysia, as the film depicts the country as impoverished and dependent upon sweatshops. Malaysia’s censorship board deemed it “definitely unsuitable”. The film was also banned in neighboring Singapore due to bilateral sensitivities and the movie’s excessive drug use. It was subsequently made available in Singapore in 2006, with an NC-16 rating.
In the U.S., the film was originally rated R but was later re-rated PG-13 on appeal for sexual content, profanity, and drug references. In the Asian release, all references to the country of Malaysia were changed to Micronesia, the subregion which Hansel mistook for Malaysia at one point in the western version.
In the United States, since the film was released on September 28, 2001 (about two weeks after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center), Stiller made the executive decision to digitally remove any backgrounds that originally contained the Twin Towers in the background skyline. Stiller defended his decision to erase images of New York’s World Trade Center Towers from the film, saying he did what he thought was appropriate at the time.
Zoolander (2001)
Directed by: Ben Stiller
Starring: Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, Milla Jovovich, Jon Voight, Nathan Lee Graham, Christine Taylor, Judah Friedlander, David Duchovny, Jon Voight
Screenplay by: Drake Sather, Ben Stiller
Production Design by: Robin Standefer
Cinematography by: Barry Peterson
Film Editing by: Greg Hayden
Costume Design by: David C. Robinson
Set Decoration by: Donna Hamilton
Music by: David Arnold
MPAA Rating: PG-13 on appeal for sexual content and drug references.
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: September 28, 2001
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